What do you hear? What do you believe?

[malasadas.livejournal.com]

One of the great benefits of the internet is that we can see and hear events that never make it as major stories in the major media outlets. It's also a problem -- obscure events can be elevated to become "representative" of entire groups of people without balance or actual analysis. We are constantly asked in the age of internet media to evaluate raw information without knowledge of context or proportionality.

This video, for example, made some rounds on the net a few months back. It purports to show a group of community organizers praying to Obama. The distributor of the video added captions at key points to assist your hearing of the key phrase "Deliver us, Obama".

Pretty damning, isn't it? Now the audio is pretty low quality, but when you watch it and listen it is pretty clear that they ARE offering prayer directly to the President.

Now listen to the video WITHOUT watching it.

If you are being honest, I'm thinking there is a really good chance that you are a lot less sure of what is being said.

So here is a question: how do you approach the supposedly "raw" information we have constant access to via alternative media sources? How much do these sources influence the "mainstream" media and what are the implications for how much even allegedly unbiased orignal source material can be manipulated?

Comments

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Well, I mean there were Christians praying to George W. Bush, yes.

OK, I see your point.

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

Yeah?! Well... oh wait we're agreeing? Oh, well, hmm. Seen any good movies recently?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Nah.......most of the movies I go to I go to for the cars, tits, giant robots and explosions.

[policraticus.livejournal.com]

They were not praying to George W. Bush. Produce some evidence or stop asserting this. You, of all people, should know the difference between praying for someone, praying over someone, and praying to someone. Pentecostals have a lot of doctrinal problems, but idolatry is not one of them.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

There's no positive spin to put on telling a bunch of kids to lay hands on a cardboard cutout and venerating it.

It's like this image:



You'd think of all denominations to realize the pitfalls of praying to a *Golden Calf* the supposedly Biblically-literate Pentecostals would be the ones. Instead they not only blaspheme with something that belongs to Flavian Rome more than 21st Century America, they directly inherit the failings of the Israelites right when *Moses talked to God on Mount Sinai.*

[policraticus.livejournal.com]

You understand the significance of "laying on hands." You know what it means, you know that it isn't about veneration or worship. Quite the contrary. That you are being so deliberately obtuse is telling. You don't believe this, you are just using it dishonestly to score points off of people you despise with people who don't know any better. Shameful.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

As a Christian I feel that there is not one way to redeem laying hands on an idol which God Himself is recorded as slaughtering a good chunk of Israel in vengeance for their worshiping one. And when I see the video what I see is not praying *for* Bush but instead a Pagan ritual to honor Caesar. It's the spirit of Rome, where God does not allow for this. Or shouldn't. The Kings of Europe sure tried to get that for a long time, however......

[mybodymycoffin.livejournal.com]

They weren't praying to Obama, either. Is that what you're getting at?

[policraticus.livejournal.com]

Did I say they were? In fact I am pretty sure I said they weren't, or at worst probably didn't mean to sound like they were. But, to someone who prays the Prayers of the People often, it sure sounds like it. It is a lot creepier than what the Jesus Camp kids do, and that is saying something.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

And the idolatry of the Bull in Times Square is what, exactly?

[policraticus.livejournal.com]

Whatever it is, harmless symbolism, silly superstition, vulgar idolatry, ironic postmodern claptrap, sinful greed exemplified, it has nothing to do with the other issue. It's a smokescreen.

[mybodymycoffin.livejournal.com]

Did I say they were?

Well, it seemed that way. True, you say it may be prayer only in a loose sense. But then you say that they are worshiping Obama.

"On the other hand, this was done (I am assuming here) by an ordained minister... in vestments. And it was done, as I said, in a liturgical manner that isn't just suplication... it is also worship." (http://community.livejournal.com/talk_politics/523413.html?thread=37501589#t37501589)

What is in the video, of course, is neither prayer, nor worship. How it can be construed as either, I don't know. What it is, and this comes to the point in the OP, is an example of how people sometimes hear and see only what they want to hear and see, and use this for propaganda and character assassination.

[policraticus.livejournal.com]

No, you misunderstand me. In the Episcopal Liturgy, the Prayers of the People are part of the worship. These folks, as I said, were using a liturgical form, missing (I hope) the larger meaning in the context of Christian worship. In that sense it is 110% creeptastic.

It is prayer, it is a form of supplication, just not to Obama as a god, but to a great authority figure with the power to grant the requests. It is beneath the dignity, in my opinion, of a free people to act this way toward anyone.